Dro Lee may still be a year away from being at T.L. Hanna High School as a student, but the eighth grader is already making a name for herself on the basketball team.

Besides starting at center for the Yellow Jackets, Lee has become an impact player for Hanna in her first season.

Again, as an eighth grader.

Hanna head coach Glenn Elrod said it was that potential the staff saw that prompted her early call up to varsity.

"She is such a unique player with her size and strength at this point," he said. "To get that production from such a young player, especially in a big game like we had with Boiling Springs (on Tuesday) where you either win or go home, it is a big lift for us."

On Tuesday, Lee recorded a double-double with 16 points and 15 rebounds in Hanna's 55-35 win over Boiling Springs to open the Class AAAAA playoffs. It marks the second consecutive year Hanna has reached the third round.

Lee also had three steals.

"We identified on film we thought we could score on the block against (Boiling Springs) 1-2-2 zone," Elrod said. "We saw they did not rotate well, and we wanted to go corner to (low) block.

"We worked on it hard in practice the day before and Dro was the beneficiary of that."

Elrod praised Lee's play, after averaging eight points and seven rebounds in the regular season. Those totals put her second on the team behind Maleia Bracone, who earned Class AAAAA All-State honors as a sophomore.

"She turned it on (against Wade Hampton). She was huge on the glass and scoring points. She gave us a lot of production," he said.

The 5-foot-10 center's journey to varsity began before the season. Lee said she was told she would be on the varsity team.

"(Coach and I) had a meeting before the season started," Lee said. "It is great playing as and eighth grader I have a great chance to do a lot of things before I graduate."

She mentioned eclipsing 1,000 career points as an individual goal she has.

Lee said it was not easy at first playing on varsity, though.

"It was a big adjustment," she said. "Especially from a physicality standpoint."

Lee had a breakout game on Dec. 1 in a 37-33 win over Wren, when she scored 13 points and nabbed 12 rebounds off the bench. Since then she has worked her way into the starting lineup.

In that time, she has given Hanna a presence in the paint.

Elrod added when having a team full of young players, the production does not always appear in the stat line.

"In our game against Westside, Dro did not have her best night. A few nights before against Easley she was right at a double-double," he said. "With young players, you get sporadic performances. The key for us is getting them at a more consistent level."

Lee said she was not too nervous about playing varsity, or being in the playoffs.

"I wasn’t nervous because I had my teammates with me," Lee said.

Now, she said, the goal is for her and Hanna to continue going through the playoffs.